


Better Not to Know

by Entwinedlove



Series: Of Might and Magic [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Foreshadowing Character Death, M/M, POV and tense changes between scenes, Time Travel, deliberate switch between BrE and AmE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 00:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16336421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/pseuds/Entwinedlove
Summary: Hermione goes back in time and throws out all the rules. Bucky's left wondering if it would have been easier not knowing.





	Better Not to Know

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Fairest of the Rare facebook group  
> SSS Lesson 3 - Point of View
> 
> [ ](https://i.imgur.com/Qk9zGyi.jpg)

Chills race up and down Hermione's spine. She wraps her arms around her stomach, willing her dinner to stay down. She'd never travelled so far back in time before and didn't have any reference to know if what she's feeling was typical. She opens her eyes and her jaw goes slack, shocked at what—at who—is standing over her.

"Come on, let me help you up," the thin, short man says as he gets a hand under her arm.

When she's standing, she stares. She knows it's impolite but she just can't stop looking at him. He's shorter than her and he looks so _frail_ , bony and thin and angular. His eyes are still that startling blue that had arrested her attention the first time they'd met. His clothes are over-sized for his frame and they're a little worn in places but there's no doubt in her mind who this is. He's starting to fidget under her obvious gaze and she recognises the idle way he twitches his fingers. "Steve?"

He freezes, blinking confusedly at her for a moment. He asks, "I'm sorry, do I know you?" and she can't help but marvel at how he sounds exactly the same as the six-foot-two super soldier she knows in the present.

She breathes through a chuckle, rapidly remembering all the things she isn't supposed to do regarding Time Travel and then promptly disregards all of them. "You don't know me yet... you will, though, in the future."

* . * . *

I hadn't thought Steve could be so stupid. He had helped a woman who'd fallen in a back alley, had believed her when she said she was from the future and she knew him, and then he'd invited her to stay in our apartment. If we had had anything of value, I'd have been worried we were going to wake up to her slipping out with the silver. We didn't, of course, but that hadn't been the point.

Steve had given her our spare blanket and she'd made a bed of our threadbare couch. I had tried to slip off to bed down in the back room on the floor but he'd insisted that if she knew him in the future then she would know what we were to one another.

I thought she was full of shit. I'd given her a chance, had talked with her over dinner, but she hadn't seemed to know much of anything about Steve. She hadn't known his favorite song or his favorite actress. Hadn't seemed to know about his bad ear and partial colorblindness. She'd looked worried when he had stood up too fast and had to steady himself on the back of a kitchen chair. I thought she had to have been a charlatan taking advantage of his kindness. I had thought that Steve had just refused to see it.

The way she kept looking at me bothered me too. Like she had no idea who I was or how to talk to me. Like she'd never met me. Sometimes I'd even catch her looking at me with pity in her eyes.

If I had believed her, that would have scared me. What had happened to me in her so-called future? Why wouldn't I be by Steve's side? That's why I didn't believe her story. Steve may have been an easy mark but she couldn't say she was from the future, that she knew Steve and didn't know me, and expect me to believe her.

I had told him until the end of the line and I'd meant it.

It wasn't until this morning when I opened the mail slot that I believed the woman who'd been living in our apartment for weeks. Inside was only a small slip of paper, addressed to me.

A draft card.


End file.
